Pettit: Return of the plain plate receives no fanfare

THE SUDDEN return of the white and black Texas license plate came about without prior notice, much less any media attention. That’s a lot different than the first time they showed up when, as best I recall, was in the Very Early 1950s.

Even though I don’t remember the exact date, I do remember the fanfare. One morning, right there on the front page of the Fort Worth newspaper, was a picture of a very pretty girl holding up a white Texas tag with black numbers. It was indeed a news story because, among other reasons, it ended a long, long tradition of alternating black and orange plates.

It also brought forth one of the concerns that marked not only my station in life at the time but, alas, the ranking of my priorities which, along with some other lesser things, focused on cars and girls and how the two were congenitally joined.

I was reared by a father who was a strong advocate of law and order and an unyielding practioner of both. For the most part, I bought into his philosophy, mainly because it was what I was preached to with sufficient vigor to discourage dissent.

YET I DID believe there should be some latitude given to male drivers of a certain age. Already, there was something of a precedent in place, i.e., stealing watermelons was actionable as both a crime and a tort but, as far as I know, neither was ever executed.

Speed, then as now, could be lethal. But, hey, why outfit your hot ’50-model Ford with loud pipes if you weren’t allowed to downshift and let ‘em purr… maybe even roar a bit?

And, given the option, who wouldn’t prefer being one car over from a pair of chortling Smittys than being alongside some idiot with a hundred speakers rapping out decibels at a deafening rate.

Up until the white plate was issued to the general public, it served as a forerunner to the radar detector of today. Before that, white tags were exclusive to state, city and county police cars.

And, even though the cop cars had other distinguishing markers such as a top-mounted light that resembled a bubble gum machine and a long rear-mounted antenna that swished to and fro like an emancipated fly rod — it was the license tag that was the easiest to spot.

Then, with everybody sporting white plates, it was months before I could quit instinctively and cussedly responding to every car I met.

But I digress…

DURING THE PAST few weeks, I have greeted the re-issue of the black-on-white tags with a far more positive outlook. In fact, I’m pretty dern glad to see them.

As something of a traditionalist, I have been bugged by the virtual kaleidoscope that has become the Texas license plate. Nowadays, when I meet five cars in a row, no two of them will have the same style tag … even though they all are from Texas.

It isn’t bad that Texas colleges all have their respective insignia made available as a means of creating revenue.

At least, the rest of the plate is obviously from Texas. Even the personalized ego plates all have a commonality.

But having a special plate for every club, every interest and — even worse, all sorts of colors and designs — diminishes the personality that is as much a part of Texas as the Alamo itself.

Ironically, one individual interest addition I thought worthwhile was killed by the state Legislature before it ever got off the ground. It would have allowed those eligible to own a license plate with the wording, Native Texan, printed right below the numbers.

It, no doubt, fell victim to those lawmakers who already were embarrassed about their own disqualifying birthplaces…

ONE OF THE positive things that happened to the licensing process is the ability to handle it by mail. Pay a buck extra and the new tag (sticker, that is) comes straight to your door.

A far cry from days of yore when everybody’s plates expired on the same day, March 31.

I remember the lines that used to wrap clear around the courthouse on deadline day which — I learned from Bobby Meeks over in the tax office — ended in 1976. That’s when licenses began expiring a year from the date of purchase.

Before that happened, the line not only was long, it was bottlenecked by the paperwork required after arriving at the counter. I got caught up in that every year.

Then one March 31 an old friend of mine, the late Cowboy Kyle, dropped by my office and suggested we get lunch and go buy our tags.

“Hey, Cowboy,” I said. “We might do one but we can’t do both.”

“Just watch,” he said.

Next thing I knew, we were in his car heading for Slaton. Unbeknownst to me and, obviously, thousands of others in Lubbock, they sold tags there, too. And there was never any wait.

For several years, then, it became a tradition. Cowboy and I would get lunch, register our cars and I’d be back at work in hardly more than an hour.

ON THE TOPIC of license plates, I believe Texas is missing an opportunity to both save and make money in the registration process. First off, by becoming the 20th state to issue a single tag, the cost of building plates would immediately be cut in half.

Evidently, even the police wouldn’t notice the difference, a point I became aware of when my wife lost a front tag in a collision with a deer, then drove the car another 50,000 miles without it. In fact, I got stopped in her car by a DPS trooper and the missing license plate wasn’t mentioned among the infractions that had offended him.

The state not only could save on the production cost by sticking the required plates on the rear bumper but generate revenue by putting all the special interest tags on the front.

If nothing else, that might get the story back on the front page — pretty girl and all …

BURLE PETTIT IS EDITOR EMERITUS OF THE LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL. EMAIL: BURLEPETTIT@SBCGLOBAL.NET WITH THE WORD “COLUMN” IN THE SUBJECT LINE.